I still love the new Reeder, but Current is the RSS app I need right now

I feel like the common wisdom is that if seasonal changes are going to affect your mental health, it’s going to be the winter, when temperatures get colder and days get shorter. My experience has often been the opposite, though: It’s not that I don’t sometimes struggle during the winter, but it’s spring and summer that really do a number on my mental health. It’s been helpful to recognize that over the last year or two, not because it changes the pattern but rather because being aware of the pattern is a first step toward developing healthier responses to it.

One thing I know that I can do in response to changes in my mental health is to change the way that I consume information from the internet. For the past year and a half, I’ve really enjoyed the new iteration of the Reeder app, which has added Mastodon and Bluesky client functionality to its core RSS offerings, letting me consume a bunch of different kinds of content all in the same app. However, when my mental health is in a not-ideal place, one of the things I know I need to do is to reduce feed consumption, setting aside the need I feel to stay in the loop about everything and paring down to a core set of sources that actually matter.

So, this year, when I started to feel the added stress that I experience in spring and summer, I pivoted to the Current RSS reader. I’d bought it on a whim earlier this year, when it was first announced, because I really like the aesthetic and feel that it’s going for: no unread counts, items automatically drop out of the feed after a certain amount of time has elapsed, information without obligation. When I first bought it, I decided against using it, because I was really enjoying following Mastodon and Bluesky accounts alongside a bunch of RSS feeds, and Current isn’t as good at that. Now, though, I need to be following less. I’ve almost entirely cut out Mastodon and Bluesky consumption, and I’ve pared down my RSS feeds to the ones that I really care about.

Current fits what I need from an RSS app right now. It will support following Mastodon or Bluesky accounts if I really want to, because both of those platforms have native support for RSS and don’t strictly need client functionality. I’m only following one so far, but I could add more if I feel like I’m missing anything. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, I don’t—I know I’m missing posts from people and accounts I like to hear from, but stepping back from online discourse is sometimes the best move even if I miss a few gems here and there.) It’s also got great support for in-app, full-text reading, so I can prioritize really reading fewer things over scrolling past a bunch of headlines and short posts. That feels right in this moment. Finally, when I’m feeling particularly anxious, I know that articles in the feed will just disappear on their own, and I don’t feel the need to stay caught up with everything.

• mental health
• Reeder
• Mastodon
• Bluesky
• Current
• RSS